Advertisers And Our Children

Some of the most important Christian principles which
we try to pass on to and establish in our children
are under threat of being very effectively destroyed
by advertisers and their paid assistants,
advertising agencies. The latter design, implement
and propagate the products of their clients.

And it is we as parents and grandparents who
are to blame for their success and for the
inroads made into the protecting cover of our
principles.

Advertising Objectives
The objectives of virtually all advertisers is
to dominate the minds of we the consumers. That
sounds somewhat extreme. But it is not that each
individual advertiser seeks total control of all
minds. Any given advertiser is only interested in
that part of our separate minds to which his
products or services seek to appeal. Individual
advertisers would "throw up their arms in protest"
at the suggestion of their seeking total influence.
And quite rightly.

But there are thousands of them - and each one is
seeking to control a part of our behaviour i.e. that
part which relates to the sales of his product. Of
course, some are much more powerful and effective
at it than others. But collectively the sum that adds
up to a highly significant realm of influence.

Common Philosophies
Moreover, virtually all advertisers have the same
basic, underlying, or even overt materialistic
philosophy. This is endemic to the way they approach
their marketing activity. Hence thousands of individual
organisations are ALL effectively propagating the same
anti-Christian philosophy to all of us.

Objective Children
Companies which are new and strapped for cash often
find themselves taking crude and short term
approaches to advertising. But the large corporations,
flooded with financial resources and often operating
in many different markets, and selling a multiplicity
of products and services, can afford to take long
term views and adopt highly sophisticated approaches.

"Get 'em while they're young" has been modified
slightly but significantly into "Get at 'em while
they're young".

Again, the individual corporation/advertiser would
feign horror at the suggestion that it was corrupting
the Christian values of our young children. One
advertising campaign does not a cesspool make, no doubt.

But it is not the influence of the one which matters.
It is the combined influence of the many. That
accumulated influence is very considerable - and
especially in its influence on young minds.

Indeed, there are two important aspects here. One is
that young minds are unformed minds. So when we as
parents allow advertisers access to them, we
inevitably and unavoidably allow them to bring a
considerable power to influence their young minds
and on their formation.

What is the essence of that formation? It is to
inculcate a process of the acquisition of materialistic
attitudes and systems of thought. In short: to promote
values which are commonly at variance with those
taught us by Jesus.

From a very early age we are allowing our kids to
have their choices determined for them by people
we ourselves, confronted by a specific situation,
would never allow near us. They are people whose
principle objective in life is to make profit
by convincing our children that they cannot
possibly be happy in life without their product -
whether it is a particular kind of cereal, footwear,
coat or whatever.

In fact, most parents are aware that the influence of
advertising has gone so far that their children are
likely to be subject to ridicule at school if they
do not have the brand which is "acceptable" this season.
Some will be aware that their children will be
"rubbished" for parents shopping at down market stores.

All this brings us to the second important aspect.
Children themselves do not usually have significant
personal spending power. In this sense they are "secondary
consumers": they consume only through their parents
spending potential.

So advertisers work on this. Crudely or sophisticatedly,
their objective is to bring a not inconsiderable
persuasive power on kids to determine their parents
preferences.

Parent Gullibility
Are parents so gullible? Of course. For at least
two reasons. Firstly, we have ourselves been
persuaded so successfully by the direct influence
of advertisers that we really expect our children
to succumb to the same and to want the same as other
people are buying.

Secondly, and with a direct link to the first reason,
we really do consider, at least at a subconscious
level, that what our children have been made to believe
by the advertisers is actually the best for them!

When we look at this in the cold light of reason it
is clear and obvious nonsense. But we rarely use
the cold light of reason. Advertisers don't like it
at all - let alone the instructive light of the
Christian's Spirit.

We sometimes take a perverse sense of superiority
in what our children are led by advertisers to
demand: "Oh, our John/Mary will simply not have a
coat/jumper/cereal/shoes without such-and-such a
brand on them". We think they are developing so
marvelously when they exhibit such "adult" attitudes
and values which we, however unrealisingly, have
ourselves come to regard as important.